


the many stages of love (and destiny)

by hermicnee



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Character Study, Demiboy Leo Valdez, Genderfluid Piper Mclean, How Do I Tag, I guess???, Latino Percy Jackson, Multi, Pansexual Leo Valdez, Pansexual Piper McLean, also i have a lot of hcs on children of aphrodite, and the other demigods lol, i mean its implied and i love that hc so, i should stop tagging jesus christ, i started this like 2? hrs ago and its almost 5am, ok goodnight fr wtf r u even still reading these tags, ok goodnight whatever, polyamorous, send help, thats not rlly stated but yeah, this is a train wreck, what the fuck is this, why the fuck isnt that a tag?? smh fake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermicnee/pseuds/hermicnee
Summary: piper mclean has never really known normal.frankly, piper mclean thinks its bullshit.normal means boring. bland old same stuff. but adults like normal, think its the best thing since sliced bread.but piper has never liked normal.piper changes her pronouns every day and finds boys and girls and everything in between and far out, cute. and she falls in love with six different people, so normal is something piper will never achieve.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Jason Grace/Percy Jackson/Hazel Levesque/Piper McLean/Leo Valdez/Frank Zhang, Kinda implied Silena Beauregard/Clarisse La Rue/Charles Beckendorf, idk? - Relationship
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	the many stages of love (and destiny)

**Author's Note:**

> this..is honestly just rambles and i doubt anyone will start nor finish this. this is honestly 2-5am rambles im sorry i got soft and thought of poly seven and it went downhill from there.
> 
> if you somehow like this, comment or give kudos i guess. pls dont give criticism because 1: i honestly will probably barely remember this and 2: ik i made many mistakes and this sucks pls this is just my soft rambles also 3: ive been half asleep writing this and i slowly got more tired so. this is a mess and a half
> 
> anyways i have a poly seven agenda so here u go
> 
> (also wtf is that name)

preface

**p i p e r**

piper mclean has never really known normal. 

frankly, piper mclean thinks its bullshit.

normal means boring. bland old same stuff. but adults like normal, think its the best thing since sliced bread.

but piper has never liked normal.

piper changes her pronouns every day and finds boys and girls and everything in between and far out, cute. and she falls in love with six different people, so normal is something piper will never achieve.

prologue

** a p h r o d i t e  **

piper mclean doesn’t know love. at least, not really.

she knows she loves her dad and grandpa but her dad sometimes makes it hard to love and grandpa is gone so soon that the old love is sometimes gone. 

piper knows love, in the sense and word but not in practice. love is everything and nothing, it’s everywhere but also nowhere. love is overflowing but also draining.

piper know’s love better than children should and better than even most adults. like how two girls or two boys can love each other. or how multiple can at once. like how sometimes someone is not a he or a she. sometimes theyre more than one gender and sometimes theyre none.

piper knows because she is more than one gender, she is all of them. she knows because also loves more than one, everyone, from boy to girl to nonbinary, she has found beautiful.

piper know’s love more than most, but she’s never really experienced it.

she finds it ironic yet fitting for a child of aphrodite.

most people would find it ironic snd weird and, oh so funny, and she may have once thought so too. but know it’s so fitting its sad and tragic, then again greece did invent tragedy.

it is fitting, like a puzzle or last color painted, because it just is. it is fitting that silena beauregard loved charlie beckendorf but loved clarisse la rue too, and died for them both. it is fitting drew tanaka’s crushes will never be requited and instead the only people she loves who loves her back is her siblings. it is fitting that mitchell bowen will crush on boys in a world that frowns at it. 

it is fitting, because child of aphrodite are only there to help others find love, never themselves. because if they help themselves they are selfish and cruel and mean to not be helping others get with their “one true loves.”

but children of aphrodite know better. they know when heartbreak will happen, they know which couple will not last, they know who loves who and when it is unrequited. 

they try to help others by stopping them and pointing them to others who will love them with their whole being and never let them go, but are glared at and told to buzz off because thats not who they want.

they are also screamed at when the relationship they were in or wanted ends badly, because they think the children of love had something to do with it. 

love is selfish. so maybe people have the fight idea when they call the children of aphrodite selfish. but they tried at least. 

piper knows she does not know love.

but with the seven she thinks she does. 

piper knows for sure when drew gives her a small smile and tells her what piper knew but ignored in fear of pain. that they were hand picked by destiny, both for quests and wars and battles but also for love and soft touches and equally soft words.

** l e o **

piper has never liked normal.

leo is not normal. leo bounces and taps his fingers to a beat she can’t hear and shakes his legs and ruffles his chocolate curly hair. it is like a dance that only he knows to music only he can hear.

piper see’s him doing this the first day of school and she thinks  _i see you i see you i too hear a song no one else hears_.  and she goes to him with words don’t say she understands him but he seems to understand her and her ever changing eyes because he smiles and suddenly they’re friends.

they talk of different things, from simple facts like favorite colors and foods (leo likes gold so dark it is almost brown, he never explains why but she gets it anyways. his favorite food is a certain meal his mom cooked every week and nothing has ever come close to it.) to big things like how he ran from foster homes and she stole things.

he doesn’t run away when she says that, even though he says running away is the only thing he knows. the only thing he’s good at, he whispers softly on the roof of a building they’re not suppose to be on but she lock picked the door.

but when he stays and holds her hand and forces her to dance a song only they hear, she knows he’s good at something else too. he’s good at understanding her and loving her and being her.

he just understands. like when she doesn’t really feellike a she one day and the next she’s something else. and he gets how she finds everyone pretty. and how she wants to be loved but no one has ever really loved her, except her grandpa because she thinks her dad forgot to love after her mom.

but he calls her the pronoun she wants to be called and adds his own affections to when she’s gushing about a cute celebrity and he holds her and says that  _ he loves her. he loves her even if her grandpa is not there to or her dad has forgotten to. because he wants to be loved like she does.  _

and she calls him a he and a they on the specific day he wishes to be called a certain pronoun and she does not judge the way he blushes softly about an old male crush and holds him back just as tightly. she holds him and says back that _ she loves him too. even if his mom is not there to and no one has ever loved him afterwards, she loves him so much. more than anyone, more than grandpa and more than dad.  _

and they hold on to each other and loves each other and understand each other and—

piper is okay with this. because maybe she finally gets love in practice. 

** j a s o n **

jason comes a few months after leo. while leo came loudly, with loud bouncing and loud jokes, jason came quietly.

when piper looked at leo she saw herself and understood and immediately fell head over heels, both platonic and not platonic. with jason, she see’s nothing- its almost sad because he looks blank and normal and piper hates normal. 

he seem’s blank. with boring blonde hair and pale skin and blue eyes and- oh. she see’s. blue eyes that are blank at first, like grey clouds, but soon she sees lightning and the storm underneath. 

he seems blank but then leo says a joke and he laughs while other people glare or ignore the joke. jason’s laugh is...ugly. it doesn’t go with his perfect hair or pretty smile. its ugly. it snorts and wheezes and has a cackle that can only be described as a witch and- piper loves it.

piper loves it like she loves leo and his stupid jokes and tapping fingers and pretty freckles. soon she and leo fall for him. its quiet and slowly comes up before it crushes into her. 

she loves how slowly, as she gets to know him, he isn’t blank or bland or normal. he has a smile that when full blown, has a chipped tooth on the side where he has a scar on his lip. his freckles are scattered and not placed delicately and almost invisible like leo’s, more spread across his slowly tanning face when the sun.

where leo’s eyes are always bright and jumping around, like a flame ever growing and spreading, jason’s are ever changing like her’s. but while her’s are colorings his are in phases. it goes from a stormy grey cloudy sky to a blistering storm to finally, a cloudless bright blue sky that light up with sunlight when leo says a joke or piper makes a comment.

and piper loves him. and leo. she loves both of them and she knows he loves them both too. because he whispers it under the stars and in one of their beds the other two always sneak it. it’s a whisper like its forbidden, like he is hiding it from anyone who isn’t them. 

she see’s jason and leo fall in love too. leo falls in love quick, too quick for other people but so easy for them. she see’s the way leo bounces and jason just watches with a fond smile, he even starts tapping his fingers like leo does and dances with him to music only they hear. the small protective snake that guards her heart and leo relaxes with how much jason loves the other boy.

his oddly callused hands hold her soft ones and leo’s almost invisible freckled cheeks and he says with his eyes  _ i love you. i understand you. im never letting you _

and when her life changes and he’s different? they all still love each other. it’s almost funny and comical how they get to know jason in the sewers and on a dragons back but in a way he’s still the same jason who’s favorite color was a pretty colored green and who had an ugly laugh and too scattered freckles and who held their hands in his callused ones and said i love you like its hidden from everyone else.

piper thinks, when jason is odd and they get to know more of him but also know some of the answers to the questions, that maybe love isn’t so bad of it can survive a goddess.

** a n n a b e t h **

piper has always liked girls, the same way she likes boys and others.

annabeth is beautiful, piper thinks the same way she thinks jason and leo are. annabeth is beautiful even with dark circles under her eyes and curly hair a mess and red bruised lips with teeth indents.

annabeth is beautiful, with her storming grey eyes that are like jason’s and unruly, curly hair like leo’s. 

piper falls in love with annabeth in a rush but also in a slow pace. she falls in love platonically so quickly it gives her nausea but romantically is like going up a steep rollercoaster and then falling quickly. you know its coming, is even waiting for it, but its always a shock and enjoyment when it happens.

annabeth curls up next to piper in the forest when her head hurts too much and piper needs a break from her boys. she cradles annabeth’s callused hand that have short bitten nails and small, old bites on them. 

annabeth brushes and braids pipers hair thats choppy and ugly and says it’s beautiful and fun to make it into a pretty braid even if its complicated.

annabeth teaches her moves with her dagger and moves with her hands pressed against hers and lips touching her cheek. piper knows annabeth loves percy, piper thinks she loves percy even if she’s never met him.

but piper also love she annabeth. and leo and jason. and she sees how annabeth loves her too. and jason and leo.

piper knows annabeth doesn’t really know or get it, and if she does she ignores it. pipers okay with that, leo and jason are too because percy is first for the blonde girl and thats fine. 

but she see’s how annabeth helps leo and understands him in a academic and creative way piper and jason sometimes cannot. its like she follows him to a land only he knows and she knows how to navigate through it. knows what to hand him when he asks and asks her own questions and understands what he says. how they tap out certain things piper cannot understand. how they make jokes with smart words piper doesn’t get. how when leo wants to work himself to the bone she takes him into her old bitten arms and says he needs rest or to eat- and he only sleeps or eats if she does too because he is just as bad as him.

piper see’s how annabeth giggles in a free way she doesn’t often when birds land on jason’s head and arms. how she stares and traces his scar with an nostalgic look. how they get what its like having a storm in their eyes and what its like being leaders in their own ways. they share jokes about how white passing they are and giggle over old stories about his sister and her friend. how their freckles are the same, wild and splattered and how they’re probably deemed ugly but others but they trace each other’s and make constellations.

annabeth’s not ready for a while, but when she does she’s there helping leo work on machines and bullies him into sleeping with herself

tucked by his side. and she and jason trace each others freckles and take care of the storms in each others gazes. and piper and her hold each other and giggle about stupid boys but say they love them in the same breathe.

piper has waited years for love, shes okay with waiting a bit more. 

**p e r c y**

with percy it is a typhoon. its a storm of waves and harsh air and flying sand.

it fits. 

percy taps flighty fingers and says sarcastic jokes and has a crooked grin. piper also has flighting fingers and sarcastic words and a smile deemed up to trouble.

piper knows what its like. to be deemed by society to be nothing but a troublemaker. to have a sharp tongue to protect yourself and try to make yourself seem smaller and more plain than you are.

so piper takes his twitching fingers and laces it through her own twitching ones and they share a mischievous smile. he messes with her choppy hair and says she’s beautiful even if she’s trying to seem plain and she straightens out his back and says he is loud even if he’s trying to be quiet. 

they fall in love quickly, both platonic and romantic at a fast pace. but piper thinks he falls in love quickly with all of the others too because of his life that he deems will be short. because he waited so long for annabeth and flirted with her when they were on the battle and thought they’d die.

piper see’s how soft he is with annabeth. how his sharp tongue and sarcastic words are softened and taken with a grin from her. how he’s not brain smarts like she is but she isn’t shocked when he’s street smart. how they fight like they’d take a sword for each other and trust each other with their hearts and souls. how he gets her to bed with a fond shake of the head and how she plays with his fingers with her adhd kicks in and theyre not on the battlefield. 

she see’s how is plays with hazel’s curls and sneaks out to buy art supplies for her and models too without fidgeting too much. how he giggles with frank and not at him and buries his face in his chest and calls out different animals to get frank to change into them. she see’s how frank and hazel and him curl him next to each other in comfortable silence and how hazel says he doesn’t have to sit still even if she has to try to draw a bit harder and how frank always winds an arm around him even if he is busy.

piper see’s how easily him and jason fit. how they’re both leaders yet they lead and follow each other in balance. how they trace each other scars and how percy is the one to ask out loud why is jason always squinting. percy is the one who convinces him to get glasses and compliments them and cleans them at random. how jason makes a connect the dots with percy’s freckles and always touches the grey part of percy’s hair. and how they switch weapons for funs yet percy’s sword fits so well in jason’s pale hand and jason’s fit so well into percy’s even though percy once said that he was told nothing but riptide could ever be balanced in his hand. a puzzle, they are.

piper’s sees how easily percy got over his flash of anger at leo and how he cringed when leo was scared of him. how he snuck into the engine room and they talked like they knew each other for years. they talk to each other in spanish and giggle together and sometimes says piper’s or one of other’s names as a joke to make it seem like they’re talking about them. how they share quips and flirty remarks even tough leo’s ears are red and the apple of percy’s cheeks are slowly becoming the color of their name. they tap each others fingers on each others bodies and play with each others hair and dance to a melody only they hear.

percy is so easy to love that piper isn’t even shocked with how fast they all fall for him.

** h a z e l **

hazel. piper learns, is shy and doesn’t really get the real world.

so piper takes her hand and teaches her. she teaches her memes and jokes and how everyone can loves everyone and sexualities and genders and movies and culture references. she plays with her curls after getting permission and soon hazel plays with her choppy strands. piper changes her eyes to match hazel’s golden to brown to black eyes. they trace each others faint freckles and cuddle close together for warmth because they both run cold.

piper see’s how hazel and frank move and function and understand each other. with blushes and giggles and how he calls her jewel. its so easy to see how much they fit and love each other with her short body curled him against his larger frame and how his big hands are soft when playing with her curls. how she draws him different pictures that range from himself to animals to different things.

she see’s how hazel follows jason and how jason follows her. how there’s blush and soft smiles and he tells her stories about new rome and the other kids there. how she giggles and puts on his golden glasses and he giggles and says it matches her eyes. how she teaches him how to braid her hair and he lets her play with his.

she’s see’s the way leo and her mold. it’s awkward and clumsy but slowly she sees leo has someone else and his own being and the snake in piper’s heart and that protects him is put to rest. how she draws different pictures for him and manages to cook with percy’s help the food that matches so closely to his mom’s. how they tell each others stories and he hums her soft tunes and she hums some back. how even though they’re both short and roughly the same stature she still drags him away to rest and he lets her.

piper’s see’s how hazel teaches annabeth how to do her hair and she does the same with annabeth’s because they’re both the same wild curls. how hazel traces annabeth’s freckles and absently while the blonde teaches her school things. how annabeth gives her drawings instead of the other way around and how hazel isn’t scared to smash the spider that crawls towards annabeth. 

piper thinks hazels waited a long time for love, and she deserved all of theirs.

** f r a n k **

piper noticed how frank is big and tall but soft and scared.

she laughs softly, not at him never at him, and tells him stories her grandpa told her about shapeshifters. how he lets her cuddle up to his warm arm and how his jokes are so funny they make her snort milk. how he tells her stories of his grandma and she tells him stories of her grandpa. how they sometimes dance even if hes clumsy and they giggle under the stars when they’re suppose to be on patrol. 

she see’s the way he and leo slowly mend and build. how leo makes him laugh and leo never laughs at him. how leo made his fingers get caught in the chinese finger traps and begs frank for help and frank happily obliges with a smile. how he shifts into fluffy animals and lets leo cuddle him to sleep soundly. how they trade stories of moms in the warm engine room and cry and laugh over them.

she see’s how soon, annabeth and him are close and bond. how she teaches him things and he listens with a fond smile. how she crawls onto his back with a laugh and exclaims how she can finally see the world. how he sings old songs his grandma sang and she slowly hum the same tune while he watches her click through her laptop.

piper see’s how him and jason quickly bond. they giggle over old rome stories and jason always says how frank is a good leader. how jason, who’s tall, jokingly complains how frank’s a giant. how they trace each other’s scars over their arms and always mange works together nicely with chores.

piper see’s how frank doesn’t have love from his mom and how he probably sometimes thinks his grandma doesn’t love him, like she does with her grandpa and dad, and thinks he deserves the love.

epilogue

** s e v e n **

piper always believed a bit in destiny and thinks that this, the seven of them with all their scars and trauma and love, that this is as close to destiny as one could get. 

**Author's Note:**

> if u made it to the end im honestly surprised wtf?? anyways im angry at myself bc hazel n franks r so short im sorry aaah im about to fall asleep especially after all that layout-ing i had to do (ive been doing all this bullshit on my phone please send help)
> 
> my eyes burn
> 
> anyways i love poly seven take this food even if its undercooked and sucking
> 
> goodnight its 5am.


End file.
